Unit 6

US History Unit 10

Missouri Compromise

Proposed by Henry Clay to maintain the balance of power between free and slave states.

Wilmot Proviso

Legislation aimed at prohibiting slavery in territories acquired from Mexico, heightening sectional tensions.

Popular Sovereignty

The principle that residents of a territory should decide the issue of slavery themselves.

Compromise of 1850

A series of laws aimed at settling disputes over slavery; included California as a free state and strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act.

Bleeding Kansas

Violence between pro-slavery and abolitionist settlers in Kansas following the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

Supreme Court decision ruling that African Americans were not citizens and invalidating the Missouri Compromise.

Sectionalism

Devotion to the interests of one's own region over the interests of the country as a whole.

Abolition

Movement to end slavery and grant civil rights to former slaves.

Harriet Tubman

A leading conductor of the Underground Railroad who helped over 300 escape from slavery.

Emancipation Proclamation

Declared all enslaved people in Confederate states free; issued by Lincoln on January 1, 1863.

13th Amendment

Abolished slavery in the United States.

14th Amendment

Granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to all persons born or naturalized in the United States.

15th Amendment

Prohibited denying the right to vote based on race or previous condition of servitude.

Sharecropping

Agricultural system where landowners leased land to freedmen in exchange for a portion of the crops, often resulting in debt.

Black Codes

Restrictive laws enacted by Southern states to control the labor and behavior of freedmen after the Civil War.

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Stressed reconciliation and national unity, acknowledging slavery as the war's root cause.

Freedmen's Bureau

Established to provide support to former slaves and poor whites in the South after the Civil War.

John Brown's Raid

An armed insurrection led by John Brown at Harpers Ferry aimed at starting a revolt against slavery.

Compromise of 1877

An agreement resolving the 1876 election dispute; led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and effectively ended Reconstruction.

Anaconda Plan

Union strategy to defeat the Confederacy, including a naval blockade and control of the Mississippi River.

Battle of Gettysburg

A turning point battle in July 1863 that ended Lee's invasion of the North.

Battle of Antietam

The bloodiest single day in American history that provided the Union with a strategic victory.

Fort Sumter

The location where the first shots of the Civil War were fired.

Ulysses S. Grant

Union General who accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House.

Fugitive Slave Act

A law that required citizens to assist in the capture of escaped slaves; part of the Compromise of 1850.